“Busy”“Busy, busy, busy”“Crazy busy”They have become the most common responses you get when you ask someone “how are you.”What kind of response is that? Who isn’t busy these days? In this life, if you’re not busy you’re probably depressed, so to be busy should be a good sign, and it apparently is. But the word implies something else: it becomes a complain, a barrier, a screen, an excuse for others or for our own selves. If “busy” is a good sign, like “I’m doing good”, why not just say that? It’s as if the only way to give importance to our lives is by comparing how hard we work, and not how much we enjoy the rewards of working. Can we really be proud of not having time to enjoy life?We, human beings, do things as a means for survival and to give our lives purpose. The problem is someone along the way realized how to take advantage of this natural disposition, to exploit it, and manipulate us so that we live to work instead of working to make a living. Work, like money, it’s a means, not an objective.A while ago, mimicking my surroundings, I as well started responding “I’m so busy”, with the idea that the busier I was, the better people would value my time and activities. Then, I realized that appreciating people by how many hours they run around trying to follow an impossible schedule, even to go out on weekends, or on vacations, or to socialize, was a stupid idea. I don’t want to be recognized that way. I don’t want a fifteen minute appointment to catch up with a friend. I don’t want unnecessary stress. I like the spaces, the silences, the apparent emptiness between one thing and the next, that magical moment when I get inspired, I remember something I had forgotten, I have a new idea, or a realization, I contemplate what’s around me, or I simply “am” without any other reason besides existing.Unfortunately a lot of people don’t have another choice than to work endless hours until reaching exhaustion for someone else’s profit, and that’s nothing to be proud of: it’s a tragedy. But the day we become our own slaves postponing pleasure, tranquility, our health and our love ones, in the name of success, social adaptation, competition, consumerism, greed, or just to cover our fear to face the wonders of our own existence, that day we’re really fucked.